Letter To The Editor: Parking Deck Will Hurt Decatur's Livability

(Editor's note. Decatur Patch editor Ralph Ellis is a resident of the 335 West Ponce building, as is the author of this letter, DeKalb County Commissioner Kathie Gannon.)

To the editor:

For full disclosure I will state that we know each other as neighbors at 335 W Ponce de Leon Ave and I am not writing on behalf of our neighbors or our condo association but as a resident of downtown Decatur.  I am writing in response to your articles about the new Carter development that will be next to our homes.

Many of the 70 homeowners of the 335 W Ponce Condominium are following the Carter development in downtown Decatur with both anticipation and concern because we adjoin the Carter property.  Over half of our homes will have our living rooms and bedrooms directly impacted by a 7 story, out of scale, exposed parking deck.

We are the residents who actually do live in Decatur, that the Business Chronicle story you link refers to in "Carter is the latest developer to eye a mixed-use project in Decatur, what’s been called one of Georgia’s most livable cities."  Unfortunately, its livability will be diminished if the city continues to allow an exposed parking deck on this site. Our parking deck and the other condo developments have the parking underground or wrapped with the residential and commercial uses of the project so no one has to contend with such an extreme intrusion.

While $500,000 in new annual taxes is being cited as the city's motivator, our approximately $500,000 in existing annual tax base will be diminished. Incentives given to the developer include density (2.5 acres is 175 apartments and  they will have 235) and right-of-way (approximately 6 feet in width along the frontage of the site from W Ponce de Leon Ave.) to allow for the new addition in front of the existing tower and they get to keep a car oriented drive-thru.

 It would seem that given these incentives, Carter and the city would want to invest a little in maintaining a quality of life for those who already live in Decatur.  They should want to eliminate the negative impact of a deck that should have been underground or wrapped from view to begin with. As a note to these pictures, one is the outside decks of the 335 W Ponce homes.  The city gave the 335 developer an incentive too, to eliminate a greenspace requirement by counting these decks as our greenspace.  There is a lot yet to learn in Decatur about livability.

Kathie Gannon

335 W. Ponce de Leon Ave., Decatur